


A Weasley in Slytherin

by Aku_Cinta_Kamu



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (Percy's dead wife), Almost Slytherin Fred and George, Fred Weasley Lives, Lenore Weasley, OFC - Freeform, Offscreen death of Audrey Weasley, Percy Weasley redemption arc, Rated T for the fuck word, Slytherin Lenore, other characters mentioned in passing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26154124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aku_Cinta_Kamu/pseuds/Aku_Cinta_Kamu
Summary: Percy Weasley is a single father and widow, estranged from his family. His oldest daughter Lenore (OFC) is sorted into Slytherin and fears her father's reaction. Instead of going home for Christmas, Lenore shows up at the joke shop, asking Fred and George, her uncles she has never met, if she can stay with them. What will Percy do when Lenore doesn't catch the train home?
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	A Weasley in Slytherin

**Author's Note:**

> I may come back and edit this later, but I may not. If you see an error let me know and I'll take care of it :)
> 
> This is more drabbly than my usual fics, but I don't have the time to make this a proper story atm. If you like it let me know you're interested and I might turn it into a full-length fic in the future!

When Lenore Weasley finally found a quiet place to sit on the train, having stowed her trunk and changed into her school robes quickly so she was guaranteed some privacy, it was all she could do not to burst into tears.  
She had owled Headmistress McGonnagal and all but begged to be held back a year, but she had been politely but firmly denied.  
It was just too soon.  
Lenore’s mother had died, leaving her alone with her father and sisters just that spring.  
Her father, Percy Weasley, was still estranged from his family and was too proud to ask them for help.  
What if baby Lucy got sick?  
Who would remember to look after little Molly while Lenore was away at school?  
Her father wasn’t very good at balancing everyone’s needs yet, and his bereavement leave was going to end soon.  
He hadn’t even found a governess yet!  
It wasn’t fair that she had to go to school and leave everyone.  
Lenore wondered if she could set up a governess for her father by owl.

What’s worst, Lenore thought, was that a small, secret part of her was pleased to go.  
It was too much for her to try to take care of everyone anymore.  
She was tired of having to take Lucy while her father went to cry in the toilet, and she was tired of all of Molly’s questions about where Momma went.

Eventually the train made it to school, and Lenore admitted to herself that maybe she was just a little scared, but she kept herself quiet and out of the way until they made it over the lake and into the castle.

It wasn’t long before they were lining up to be sorted.  
Lenore’s stomach had just about dropped into her shoes by the time that old hat started calling names: she almost missed it when the Headmistress called out “James Sirius Potter.”  
She stared. That was her cousin.  
He was sorted into Gryffindor almost the second the hat touched his head, but that was expected.  
After all, his last name may be Potter but he was a Weasley like she was.

She watched the sorting intently, filing each name into the back of her head for future reference.  
Her momma always used to say that remembering a person’s name was important; it was worth the effort in the long run.  
Lenore’s momma would have been a Ravenclaw, or so father always said, but Lenore knew where she belonged.  
All Weasleys go into Gryffindor: especially ones that looked like her, with her bright red hair and her amber eyes.

She was the last one to be called.  
None of her cousins other than James were in first year with her, but that was okay.  
She knew her oldest cousin Victorie was a fifth year, and James’ adopted older brother Teddy Lupin was head boy in Hufflepuff.  
Aunt Ginny had sent an excited howler out to everyone in the family about it this summer; it was the first time she had ever heard her aunt’s voice.  
Her father had looked proud, but strained.  
She wished he would just talk to his siblings.  
She would have been in a much better position now if she had been allowed to grow up with her cousins.  
At least then she would know some people.  
Her father was reclusive though.  
He didn’t go anywhere except to work; it had been mother who had taken them out, but she would always floo them over to Denmark, where she had grown up.  
Her mother had been homeschooled; she would have homeschooled Lenore if she— well, If.

But now Lenore was stuck in line waiting to put an old gross hat on her head in front of thousands of people she didn’t know.

Her name was called and she set her shoulders straight, raised her head, and sat on the school.  
The word that came next changed everything.

_“Slytherin!”_

When the train came to take them home for Christmas Hols, Lenore waved her friends on and set to walking.  
She made great time; she straightened her green tie carefully, and walked into the shop.

“Uh, we’re closed now actually —” started the man behind the counter, before he looked up at her and froze.  
Gred! Get out here!”  
“Coming Forge!” Another man joined him from the back.  
They could have been identical; almost were, but the second one was missing an ear.

Lenore set her trunk down on the floor decidedly, steeled herself, then stuck out her hand.  
“I’m Lenore Weasley, your niece. My dad’s your brother Percy.”

They seemed to be struck mute, glancing at each other and then back at her hand.  
The twin with the ear: Fred, she knew it was her Uncle Fred, finally reached out and shook her hand.  
“We uh. We didn’t know that Perce-” “had any children, he never said” “but then he doesn’t say much of anything” “not these days. Never a letter, isn’t that right Gred?” “That’s right Forge, not since the wedding.”

She had heard that they did this, what her father called ‘twinspeak’ but it was different hearing it in person.  
She held hard to her straight face, trying not to laugh or cry.

They spent a minute staring at each other, her uncles at her and she at them, before she remembered why she was here and squared her shoulders again, taking a deep breath and asking — “Can I stay here for Christmas?”  
A look passed between her uncles, unreadable to her.  
“Now why in the name” “of Merlin’s soggy shorts” “would you want to do that?”  
Uncle George frowned and asked “Does Percy not feed you?”  
Uncle Fred snorted at the question and then, peering at Lenore, sobered and asked “Well does he?”  
“Father takes care of us just fine,” she said defensively, dodging the question.  
They shared another look, before Uncle George hopped over the counter and picked up her trunk, and started up a staircase.  
“Come on. This seems like a discussion for the flat,” “no need to stand around the shop all day,” and they were off up the stairs.  
Lenore followed them, peering interestedly at some canary creams on her way past them.

The flat looked surprisingly comfortable.  
Lenore was ushered into a plump armchair, and had a cup of hot chocolate in her hands before she knew it.  
Opposite her, her uncles had taken up seemingly casual positions on the couch, but Lenore was good at reading people.  
They were tense.  
Lenore could handle tense. It was fine.

The tension didn’t stop until Lenore had politely sipped her way to the bottom of her mug and set it down on the coffee table in front of her and Uncle George finally spoke.  
“Why didn’t you catch the train home, Lenore?”

Lenore looked down and fingered her Slytherin tie.  
"Doubt they’d want me back now,” she said quietly.  
“I don’t want to corrupt Molly or Lucy.  
They might get sorted wrong too.”

“Hold on now—” “Corrupt!—”

“Dad has enough on his plate taking care of the babies without mom.  
I’m not going to make him kick me out.  
If you don’t want me here I can try flooing around.”  
Another worried glance.  
“You’re not my only uncles you know,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.

The tension broke as her uncles chuckled at that.  
"No shit,” Uncle Fred said.  
“We’re not going to pass you around the family like a hot potato, Lenore,” Uncle George said seriously.  
"You’ll stay with us. Well, you’ll stay with Fred and I’ll go sort out Percy’s face with my fist.”  
“Now hold on! How come you get to go hit Percy?”  
“Because I’m going to have to hit someone over this, and it may as well be the tosser who deserves it!”

Lenore stopped that argument before it could go any further.  
"Please don’t. I don’t want you to hit him.  
It’s my fault I’m a defective Weasley.”

Her uncles froze. “Defective?” Uncle George croaked.  
“Lenore, you listen to me.  
There is nothing wrong with you.  
You aren’t ‘defective,’ or whatever else you’ve convinced yourself you are.”  
“He’s right! You know you take after us, a bit.  
That greasy old hat almost put us in Slytherin”  
“Individually too! Both of us fought the damn thing to stay together”  
“The only reason we ended up in Gryffindor was because each of us was convinced that’s where the other was going!”  
“There’s nothing wrong with being in Slytherin and if anyone says otherwise…”  
“You let us know. Or better yet, come pick something up and prove them wrong yourself!”  
“You can have whatever you need from the shop, free of charge!”  
“Anything for our new favorite niece!”

Lenore blinked at them.  
"There’s nothing you can say that will make me any less the family disappointment,” she said, trying not to get emotional at her uncles’ warmth.

“Welcome to the club!” they said together.  
“We were the family disappointments for years!” “We’re pretty much immune to all that by now,” “but if it bothers you all that much you can stay with us.” “Stay as long as you’d like,” “We won’t test any new pranks on you” “no promises about old ones though!”  
Lenore lit up at the word.  
"Could you tell me some stories about your pranks? Father doesn’t talk about them much.”  
And just like that, the conversation was off.

They talked well into the night.  
Lenore told her uncles all about her sisters and about how she didn’t like being away from them when her father was still acting weird with grief.  
They told her all about the rest of her uncles and aunts, about her grandparents and about the pranks they pulled in school.  
They talked a little about the war, and when Lenore talked about her mother’s death, they got quiet and talked about the end of the war, and how they almost didn’t make it out together.  
How Uncle Fred was hit with an experimental spell which had stopped his heart beating, but hadn’t killed him.  
How they almost buried him, how it was months before he had woken up.  
How Uncle George had lost his ear.  
How they had lost friends, had lost Angelina to her own wand.  
Lenore talked about the funeral.  
About the way little Molly still hadn’t stopped asking for her Mamma before Lenore had left.  
Her uncles told her about Teddy Lupin, who used to metamorph his face in the mirror to look like pictures of his mom and dad, how they had found him like that once and nobody could stop crying for days.

By the time they all passed out in the living room, Lenore felt lighter, like a weight had been lifted from her soul.

It was in the early hours of the morning that there was a loud _pop!_ of apparition in the shop, which woke the three of them.  
Footsteps ran up the stairs to the flat, and there was a loud and frantic knocking on the door.

Uncle Fred went to answer it while Uncle George put Lenore behind him, wand out.  
It was her father at the door.

“Percy”  
“Fred! My daughter is missing, nobody’s seen her anywhere!” He pressed a small portrait into her uncle’s hands.  
"She’s thirteen, she just started Hogwarts, I’ve got the whole family looking —”

“Father?” Lenore cut in, unsure.  
She had never heard him so frantic before.  
He looked exhausted but full of anxious energy: it made her feel guilty and small, but she remembered how afraid she was of his reaction once he found out what she was, how she had failed him and the family.

She was in his arms before she realized he had moved.

"Lenore! Merlin, darling I was so worried,” he said, pressing kisses into her hair and forehead like he used to when she was little, like he still did with her sisters.  
He pressed her back to arms length, cupping her face in his hands and looking her over, like he was checking to see if she was hurt.

“Did you miss the train? Why didn’t you send an owl?! I’ve been out of my mind worrying about you!”  
“I— ”  
“Do you have any _idea_ how worried I was when you didn’t get off the train?  
I made them search all the compartments, I’ve had the headmistress searching the school, I was about to call in the aurors—”

“Dad!” She cut in, instinctively using a word she hadn’t used since she was eight, a word she felt too grown up for.  
She felt herself redden a little before she continued.  
“I’m fine, father. I didn’t miss the train.”

He looked confused, studying her, looking at her the way he looked at the ministry paperwork he brought home when it didn’t add up, the way he looked at baby Lucy when she wouldn’t stop crying.

“You didn’t miss the train.”

“No.” She pulled away from him and rubbed her arm, looking down at her socks and trying not to glance over at the tie draped with her robes over the back of the armchair.

“Lenore Genevra you had better have a very good reason for worrying me sick.”

“Percy.” Her father turned to look at George, who was standing by the armchair.  
To her despair, her uncle sent a pointed glance at the offending tie and back at him.

Her father blinked.  
Looked at the tie. Looked at her. Back at the tie. Back at her.

“Oh sweetheart,” he breathed and pulled her into his arms again, this time holding her tight the way he did after a nightmare, the way he had over and over every time she skinned her knee or got angry or frustrated or hurt.  
Lenore couldn’t help it, she started sobbing.

Percy left the shop carrying his eldest in his arms, after sending his patronus around to call of the search.  
In one night he had woken up: he had visited every one of his siblings in person, desperate, and not one of them had turned him away.

He apparated to the Burrow, followed by the twins, walking in to see a house full of relieved faces.

He had tear tracks on his face, but he was smiling as his mother fussed over him and Lenore, moving people off the couch to set him down and cover the two with heavy hand-knit blankets.  
He couldn’t stop breathing in the smell of his daughter, pressing his face into her hair, relieved that he had found her, that she wasn’t hurt, that he hadn’t lost her like her mother.

His father sat down beside him, holding Molly Jr and Lucy in his arms, both sleeping soundly.  
(And hadn’t that been a moment, when his mother had heard the name of his second daughter, when she had looked at him like she was seeing him for the first time, and then looked at his youngest two like they had been made of starlight itself.)

Percy had to close his eyes at the sight of his children, had to breathe through the wonder and relief that hit him like a fist to the stomach.

“Thank Merlin” he breathed, realizing he had been repeating it since his father had sat down. “Thank Merlin.”

“Well now, Merlin had very little to do with it,” he heard one of the twins say.

He looked up to see them kneeling beside him, Fred’s hand on Lenore’s back.  
Percy swallowed around the lump in his throat.  
“Thank you. Both of you. I…” He couldn’t find any more words, pressing his face back into her hair and breathing shakily.

George’s hand came up to find his shoulder.  
“You don’t have to thank us, Perce. We’re family.”

Percy looked up with a tight, teary smile.  
“We are, aren’t we?”

“Yeah. And you had better not fucking forget that again,” his sister said crossly, somehow managing to sound fond and pissed at the same time.

“She’s right Perce. None of us even knew you had kids, what—”

“I wanted to tell you. I wanted to, every day, I just. The things I did, the person I was during the war. He didn’t… I… He didn’t deserve a family. I didn’t deserve you, I probably still don’t.” He was sobbing now, trying to be still enough that he didn’t wake his daughter.

_“Percival Ignatius Weasley!”_ it had been a long time since he had gotten the full-name treatment from his mother.  
“Mom,” he said, through a sob, “Mom,” and suddenly her arms were around him, holding him and his beautiful (safe, safe and right here) daughter, and he was spilling his guts.

About his wife and being alone with the kids, and failing them over and over, and wishing he could come back but not wanting them to think he was only talking to them because he needed help.  
About _needing_ help but not being able to trust anyone with his kids.  
About Lenore’s hired governesses showing up at his house and having to fire them one by one, having to put his foot down and work from home because he couldn’t let a stranger touch his children.  
About trying to fix things in the ministry, trying to build a better world for his daughters, but also having to spend time away from his daughters to build that world.  
How excruciating it was to work when his daughters needed him.

The Weasley family gathered around them, listening, waiting.  
And when he was done, one by one they chewed him out, but not for what he expected.  
For not letting them in to help him, for cutting them out of his life.  
For making decisions for them.  
"If we wanted you to leave and stay away, we would have made that decision,” they told him.

It was a start.

That Christmas there were four more stockings at the Burrow than usual.  
There were so many stockings that Molly Weasley Sr had started using them as a trim around the kitchen, the dining room, the living room ceilings.  
Lenore got a sweater in green and silver, and Percy got one to match.  
Molly Jr and Lucy were being constantly passed around, so much so that Percy had to locate and steal them away when he wanted time with his own daughters.

He got to know his nieces and his nephews, to reconnect with his family.

When the time came to put his daughter back on the train he was standing next to his siblings and their own children.  
His youngest two had stayed with their grandparents at the Burrow.  
He was under strict orders not to come back until dinner.

He looked down at his daughter, straightened her tie, hooked a finger under her chin, looked her in straight in the eyes, and said “next time you miss that train, I’ll leave you with your uncles for a month.”

She smiled back up at him.  
“No you won’t.”

“No I won’t. But you had better not miss that train.”  
He kissed her on the forehead and sent her off with her cousins.

He turned and apparated to work for the first time since his wife had died, knowing that his daughters were all safe and cared for.

(And that maybe, he was too.)


End file.
